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> Women just don't want to be in a high-profile, financially rewarding career with tons of growth potential, because ____. a) It is not high profile. Outside o

> Women just don't want to be in a high-profile, financially rewarding career with tons of growth potential, because ____. a) It is not high profile. Outside of a few tech hubs the work is neither cool nor well respected. b) It is no more financially rewarding than many other careers. In my city the average software developer earns about the same as a nurse. There are plenty of good developers in the US who are on less than 6 figures. c) Unlike nursing etc, there is an incredible amount of churn and knowledge quickly devalues. This concerns anybody who wants the option of taking a few years off work. d) Despite c) we rarely allocate any work time for L&D. So if you don't want to fall behind then you need to spend a significant chunk of your own time on L&D. Great if you are looking for more work-life balance!

tptacek 11y ago
This "it's not high-profile" trope is just self-aggrandizement from nerds who want to feel like their outsized salaries are just rewards for a lifetime of persecution and neglect. In reality, most work done by most people is not "high profile". There are lottery-win careers like managing director path investment banking or high-end corporate consulting, which only a tiny fraction of all the practitioners in those fields get, and there are medical doctors. Pretty much everything else is just a job, like all the other jobs, and you're crazy if you think office managers, machinery parts sales reps, and accountants have higher-status jobs than software developers. It's time to kill this meme about tech being low-status.
- sheepmullet 11y ago
  Or, it could be just a response to all the other nerds who think it is high profile. Like the poster I was replying to :). > In reality, most work done by most people is not "high profile". Spot on! And so you can't expect women to want to become software developers because of its high profile.

tptacek 11y ago

This "it's not high-profile" trope is just self-aggrandizement from nerds who want to feel like their outsized salaries are just rewards for a lifetime of persecution and neglect. In reality, most work done by most people is not "high profile". There are lottery-win careers like managing director path investment banking or high-end corporate consulting, which only a tiny fraction of all the practitioners in those fields get, and there are medical doctors. Pretty much everything else is just a job, like all the other jobs, and you're crazy if you think office managers, machinery parts sales reps, and accountants have higher-status jobs than software developers. It's time to kill this meme about tech being low-status.

sheepmullet 11y ago
Or, it could be just a response to all the other nerds who think it is high profile. Like the poster I was replying to :). > In reality, most work done by most people is not "high profile". Spot on! And so you can't expect women to want to become software developers because of its high profile.